


call the roll of the blacked-out lands

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Hawk," BJ says, quietly, and kisses him quickly, invisibly, on the side of his neck, on the pulse point. "If you don't... well, this guy's gonna die."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	call the roll of the blacked-out lands

"I am not a number!" Hawkeye yells, in his sleep. "I am a free man!"

He comes awake slowly, hands curling into fists on the metal edges of the bunk. Hunnicut glances across at him. "You watch a lot of TV as a kid, Pierce?"

Hawkeye stares at him. "Yeah. I guess." Through the half-blur of sleep, he's aware of the sky above him, dimly visible through the canvas. "Though don't you think..."

"No argument here." Something about his voice is calming, and Hawkeye makes a sudden, impulsive decision. "Hey."

"Yeah?" Hunnicut looks at him with interest, but there's still friendliness in that gaze, as though they're in this together. Hawkeye breathes in.

"My name is Hawkeye. I mean, it's... it's Benjamin Franklin Pierce - yeah, I _know_ " - this off Hunnicut's expression - "on my papers, and, and stuff. But my friends, and everyone - they called me Hawkeye. My dad named me after a character in The Last of the Mohicans."

"Hawkeye," Hunnicut repeats, and holds out a hand. Hawkeye scrambles off the bunk ungracefully to grasp it, unrepentant about wanting human touch. "BJ."

*

The day after they operate in tandem, chest wounds, gunshot wounds, bodies opened up with strange hollownesses inside, the flesh fused like glass. Not for the first time, Hawkeye looks up at the overseer and says, "What... what happened to them?"

"That's not your concern." The overseer puts a hand to his face and for a minute Hawkeye thinks he might pull down the mask. "Another one coming."

"Ready to close," Hawkeye says quietly to BJ, and BJ responds without speaking. They're a good team, Hawkeye thinks, looking down at both their hands buried in the patient's abdominal cavity. He glances back at the overseer, the black band over his eyes shifted back into place. Hawkeye squeezes his own eyes shut for a minute, breathes in the clean smells of antiseptic and alcohol.

"Next," he calls, and the orderlies come in.

*

"Where are you from?" BJ whispers, after dark.

"Crabapple Cove, Maine," Hawkeye answers. "Went away to school in Boston, class of '08, then moved back to hang out my shingle next to my dad's. Kind of a country doctor, me."

"You're very talented," BJ says, and there's a beat. "Look where it got you."

Hawkeye shrugs, gives him a wry grin. "You?"

"California." BJ looks far away for a moment, his eyes on the stars they can see. "God, I miss San Francisco." 

"Never been, and I miss it. You gotta tell me what exactly I miss about it sometime." Another beat, then Hawkeye asks, tentatively, "Where do you think we are?"

BJ looks back up at the stars, then matches his shrug. "Northern hemisphere. S'all I've got."

"Celestial navigation," Hawkeye murmurs, and without his really meaning to, his hand creeps out from his side, finds BJ's, grips tight.

*

The patients tend to be white, though once or twice there's been an East Asian face above the sheet. They have the worst injuries, their bones turning inside them into strange, vitrified corruption. Hawkeye has noticed his gloves are not latex; although they look very close to it, there is a layer of something protective inside, so his hands emerge tingling and numb, but intact. "What is this?"

There's no answer. The overseer looks down at him, his disapproval palpable even through the eye band. When they're done for the day and about to be shepherded back to their camp, Hawkeye pauses in the doorway, looking out across the bare ground and the scrub, the curve of the landscape towards the sky. There's nothing he recognises. 

"Thinking of making a break for it, soldier?"

Hawkeye turns, then inhales sharply, taking an involuntary step backwards. It's the overseer. "Firstly," he says, his words not matching his tone, fear unravelling in the rhythm of his breathing, "I'm not a soldier. Secondly..."

"Consider yourself drafted." The overseer turns away from him for a moment. "Consider yourself fighting a great battle that won't be won in your lifetime. The..." - there's a hint of a smile, under the mask - "experiments. What we learn is of enormous value. In a way, you're serving your country. Can you understand?"

"No," Hawkeye says, "please, no" - and BJ's there, with a hand under his shoulder, putting his own body between Hawkeye and the overseer.

*

More quietly than usual, BJ asks, "How'd they get you?'

They're sharing a bunk meant for one person, close enough to hide their words in each other. "I was in the city," Hawkeye murmurs into BJ's hair. "I just - I was going somewhere. I was meeting a girl. I was going to text her, say I'd be late. And then... I couldn't breathe. I thought... I woke up here."

"I was going to the public library." BJ huffs a laugh which Hawkeye feels in his bones. "Can you imagine? I stopped to cross the street and the streetcar... didn't stop. And then I was somewhere else."

"Do you think," Hawkeye asks very gently, "we'll ever go home?"

BJ places a finger on his lips. "Don't, Hawkeye. Please."

*

It's freezing cold when they bring the next batch in, and Hawkeye is shivering in the draught, watching his fingers shake. Not for the first time, he imagines taking the scalpel a few inches to the left, cutting through the layers of skin and tendons and carpal bones, taking off his own hand like a glove. _Then how'd I do the other one_ , he thinks, and laughs. It sounds crazy, he thinks too late; it sounds like he's wanting to turn himself inside out and start over, as someone else.

"Hawk," BJ says, quietly, and kisses him quickly, invisibly, on the side of his neck, on the pulse point. "If you don't... well, this guy's gonna die."

"I know," Hawkeye says, and makes the incision.

*

Hawkeye says, that afternoon, "We _could_ make a break for it. Threaten the overseer with a scalpel and run for the hills."

Outside the tent, the wind howls. Ice crystals are beginning to form on every surface, and Hawkeye, who grew up in New England, hasn't ever seen a sky such vivid blue, with such promise of bitterness.

BJ says, "You watched too much television", in the cadence that means, _I love you_ , and for a moment they hold perfectly still.

"Winter's coming," Hawkeye says, feeling a strangeness creeping over him, as though his body is turning into glass.

**Author's Note:**

> For bookwormsarah, who wanted M*A*S*H reimagined as a dystopia.


End file.
